Blogger's Quilt Festival 2013

I have decided to enter my quilt "Happy Days Ahead" in the Bloggers Quilt Festival in the Bed Quilt Category.  I have to say that I have seen some amazing quilts in this category. I don't expect to win, but if I do it would be great.
This is a quilt that I designed and made for a commission. The colors were chosen using the favorite colors of the girl who was set to receive it.  I have to say that the color combination is now among my favorites. The quilt measures 92" by 70"
I also pieced the back and it fits quite well in the Modern Quilt Movement in my opinion.
So here it is both front and back for you to see and enjoy.

I free motion quilted this one on my domestic machine.  My free motion skills have improved since then thanks to Leah Day's Class on Craftsy.  But this was made prior to taking the class.
I hope you enjoy seeing my quilt and if you wish to nominate it for viewer's choice, I would be totally honored.

Art Quilting Fun

Saturday I started on  fun little art quilt.  It is not my design, but it is a part of the learning process.  I am taking Hand Stitched Collage Quilts on Craftsy.  I started it soon after the class was announced.  But I just started MAKING one of the projects. This one is called "The House in the Valley."    I got the top fused together onto the batting.  At that point I took a picture:

I have started on the hand stitching to add embellishment but I only have a little bit done.  Let me show you what I did to the house.

I used an Aurifil 12 wool thread to outline the windows and an Aurifil 12 Mako for the cross pieces. The other threads are hand dyed that I have bought various places.

I am starting to add the seed stitches in the tree to give it some texture now.

That thread going off the top of the picture is attached to my needle. This thread is one that I won from Laura Wasilowski on her blog. She "mis-dyed" some thread and I was lucky enough to get some.  I think it goes great with my tree fabric.

There is a television commercial that I have seen somewhere (not at home since I only have Netflix) but nevertheless I have seen it.  The tagline is "Never Stop Learning."  That is my goal.  I love learning new things.

Okay one confession about this piece. I changed some of the colors to make it a little more mine AND because I didn't have the exact colors Laura suggested.  But hey, it is my quilt and so I get to do that.

Project Update & Want to take a FREE Craftsy Class?

A couple of people said they wanted to see my snack mat when it is finished.  It isn't finished since I don't have a binding on it yet.  But it is ready for the binding!   So here are a couple of pictures of it.

The angle shot below shows the quilting a little better.

I did both free motion and straight line quilting on this.  It is the most densely quilted thing I have ever made!

I also just had to make a bowl cozy since I kept seeing them everywhere on blogs.  I used the instructions here.  I will show it to you with the bowl.

And with the bowl removed:

And since they are reversible - the other way:

Can you believe I coordinated the fabrics?

Now About That FREE Class:

Craftsy is offering a free class to new users.  So if you have never taken a class from Craftsy,  This is your big opportunity. There will be several choices of free classes.   There are free classes on Sewing, Quilting, Crochet, Embroidery, Knitting, Jewelry Making, Cake Decorating and more.
Just click the picture to get there. If  you use my link to join, I do get a little bit of credit. (Thank you!)
I am hoping that this will be open by the time this post goes live.  If not, come back later this evening or tomorrow to get your free class - I believe it goes live tomorrow.

A Table for----

I am sure most of you have thought "Is he still sewing?" or "What is going on with Gene?"  The truth is that I have been busy with a lot of things and my energy has been sapped.  Things are getting under control I think and I have actually made one small project and am working starting on another.

First the finished project!  Yippee, don't you love a finished project?
For all of my sewing days, I have had to run into another room to iron my pieces.  That takes a lot of time and energy. I have seen various ways people have set up a small ironing surface near the sewing machine and I decided to make my own.
I took a TV table and measured the top.  I got already had some ironing board cover fabric - the nice shiny kind that reflects heat back.  And I had some batting and some backing fabric.   I fiddled around and made a simple ironing pad with ties to put on the tabletop.  Oh yes I put two layers of batting. I hope that was a good thing to do.

Here it is sitting up:

 You can see one of the ties hanging down.  And here is the underside so you can see how simply it is tied on. There are two bow knots there.  So I can easily remove it to wash it OR to use the table for something else if needed.

Right now on my cutting board I have a piece of fusible fleece and some scraps.

I am going to take the scraps and cut them up even smaller and layer them on the fleece and iron it down.  Then I will back it and quilt it heavily (or as my grandpa would have said quilt the "beegeebers" out of it!)   Then with some type of binding it will be a nice little snack mat.  I saw this on Stitchin' Therapy by Debbie and she reminded me that she got the idea from Wanda at Exuberant Color - which I also read.
Will mine look as good as theirs?  I guess we will wait and see.

Are you working on a project right now?

Creating with Tombow

I am celebrating the 100 days of Tombow.  You see the Tombow product line is 100 years old, but still fresh and creative.
I was sent a starter pack of Tombow products.  It contained some lovely colored pencils and some dual point pens.

The pens have a sweet combination of brush tip and a firmer pointed tip.

I love this combination. For finer areas, I can use the point and for larger areas I can use the brush.  I used both to color in this doodles.

Then I tried a rather simple landscape to show the use of both pencils and pens together.

The colors work together so well that it is hard to tell where one stops and the other begins.

I was also sent a StampRunner adhesive.

While I didn't use it in these projects, I can see that I will be using it in the future.  I think it will be perfect to attaching pieces of a pattern together.  I hate it when a pattern prints across two pieces of paper, but sometimes (ok, often) that is necessary to make it large enough.  This jewel will attach them easily.  The glue is repositionable for a short time then becomes permanent. So you have time to get it right, but then it stays!

Check out all of the Tombow products at Tombow USA.

(I was supplied with pens, pencils and the stamp runner in exchange for my blog post.  However, the opinions are my own.)